Pulling together as a community is an age-old tradition on the East End, as Bridgehampton Historical Society Program Director Stacy Dermont found out while doing research for the society’s newest exhibit, “Bridgehampton’s Historic Turnpike.”
During an interview at historical society headquarters last Friday, Ms. Dermont said that the 2½-mile section of toll road that is now part of the Bridgehampton-Sag Harbor Turnpike had always fascinated her, but she didn’t know much about its history until she hit the books and reached out to local residents for information.
“I’ve always had a strange and healthy curiosity about the history of the Bridgehampton Turnpike but I honestly didn’t know if we would ever be able to gather enough information about it for an exhibit,” she said. “Now, with the community’s participation, we have more stuff than we can fit here.”
Collecting information over the last year on the former toll road—stretching from Montauk Highway to Scuttlehole Road and linking the communities of Bridgehampton and Sag Harbor—would have been a much more daunting task but for the help of about 15 knowledgeable local residents, Ms. Dermont said. One such resident was 97-year-old author Richard G. Hendrickson,
whose boyhood memories of the area proved invaluable for Ms. Dermont and fellow curator Julie Greene.
“We’re so lucky to have him,” Ms. Dermont said of the historian. “He soaked up history like a sponge.”
Though he wasn’t around from 1837 to 1905 when tolls were being collected on the privately-managed road, Mr. Hendrickson is one of the only people still living on the East End who can give first-person accounts of life in the area during the early 20th century. Mr. Hendrickson—whose book “From the Bushy Plain of Bulls Head: Whisperings and Wanderings” is on display at the Bridgehampton Historical Society—said in a telephone interview last Friday that he has very specific boyhood memories about riding along the Bridgehampton-Sag Harbor Turnpike in the family’s Model T Ford.
The turnpike, which was once a cart path, became a privately run toll road after a group of businessmen got together in 1833 and won approval from New York State to improve and manage the thoroughfare. A toll house was built in 1834, and in 1837 the group began collecting tolls.
According to Ms. Dermont, the goal of establishing the toll road was not to turn a profit, but instead to make passage easier from the Sag Harbor port to businesses in Bridgehampton.
“It was all about enabling commerce from one point to another,” she explained.
Ms. Dermont reported that the original shareholders actually did turn a profit on the road though, until the railroad was built in 1870, effectively putting the turnpike out of the toll-collecting business.
The “Bridgehampton’s Historic Turnpike” exhibit includes artifacts, paintings, photographs, postcards and oral history about the businesses that lined the former one-lane dirt path, including the toll house, Wick’s Tavern and the Long Island and Fishers Island Brick Company, the brickworks that produced the building blocks for Pierson High School and the Sag Harbor train depot. The display also features historical information on the Sag Harbor-Bull Head Turnpike and the East Hampton Turnpike, which is now Route 114.
Mr. Hendrickson said he remembers the brick factory fondly. Once known as the Sag Harbor Brick Company, the company changed hands in 1902, and became the Long Island and Fishers Island Brick Company.
As a young boy, Mr. Hendrickson was particularly fascinated by the brickworks factory kiln, which produced 400,000 bricks per burn.
“I was a small fellow when there was a brickyard, maybe a 6- or 8-year-old boy at the time,” Mr. Hendrickson said, noting that the original site has changed dramatically since he was a child. “The place where they would dig the clay to make the bricks ... It’s now a big pond.”
While reminiscing about his travels along the turnpike and his memories of the brick factory, Mr. Hendrickson reported that he still owns a few small pieces of the brickyard’s history, including a cast-iron wheel from a wheelbarrow and a brick given to him by Arthur C. Griffing, the factory owner.
“I still have one of the bricks that Mr. Griffing gave to me in 1924 or 1925,” Mr. Hendrickson said. “I know it’s a brick, but I consider it a piece of living history.”
“Bridgehampton’s Historic Turnpike” will be on display through March 6 at the Bridgehampton Historical Society’s Corwith House, 2368 Montauk Highway. Winter gallery hours are Monday through Friday from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.; admission is $5. Call 537-1088 for additional information.
Dawn Watson on Jan 28, 2009